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The Italian Short Story Through the Centuries

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The Italian Short Story Through the Centuries The Italian Short Story through the Centuries The Italian Short Story through the Centuries: The Met(A)morphoses of the Novella Edited by Roberto Nicosia The Italian Short Story through the Centuries: The Met(A)morphoses of the Novella Edited by Roberto Nicosia This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Roberto Nicosia and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0332-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0332-8 A mia figlia Luisa TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ................................................................................................. 9 At the Origin of the Novella: From History to Story Carlo Vecce Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 25 The Words to Narrate Eros: Three Stories of Metaphors in the Decameron and after the Decameron Luigi Surdich Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 42 The First Variations of a Legendary Short Story: Romeo and Juliet Daria Perocco Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 55 Galileo and the Short Story Crystal Hall Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 67 The Word at Play: Variety and Forms of the XVIIth Century Novelle and Novellare Erminia Ardissino Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 83 Arrigo Boito’s Incubi: A Paradigm of the 19th-century Fantastic Novella Morena Corradi Chapter Seven ............................................................................................ 99 Pirandello’s “La Giara” as Clash of Cultures Linda L. Carroll viii Table of Contents Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 107 Hercules at the Crossroad: Willy Dias’ Strategies of Social Unmasking Cristina Gragnani Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 127 Short Story, Common Sense, Modernism: San Giorgio in casa Brocchi by Carlo Emilio Gadda Alberto Godioli Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 139 The Humanist Critique of Instrumentality in Alberto Moravia’s Short Fiction Silvia Stoyanova Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 160 “L’Anima Semplicetta che sa Nulla”: Some Reflections on the Short Narrative of Anna Maria Ortese Monica Farnetti Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 180 Revisitations of the Fantastic in Antonio Tabucchi’s Short Stories Remo Ceserani Bibliography ............................................................................................ 192 Contributors ............................................................................................. 213 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all the colleagues who showed their enthusiasm and patience over the last six years for a project that sat for too long a time in my “dusty” drawers. This collection was born of panels chaired at the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) convention between 2008 and 2012, and from the passionate collaboration of the scholars who accepted the challenge to contribute to a comprehensive English volume on the Italian shot story. The textual “fortune” (in terms of publishers’ vicissitudes) of the text, would merit itself a short story, but it is enough here to say that the project risked a couple of times “to run aground” and that only the strong will of the essayists and the obstinacy of both myself and the publisher guided the project to a “serene harbor.” I want to thank all the collaborators and colleagues who directly or indirectly participated in the genesis of the volume, in particular, for the proof-reading and the invaluable help dedicated to translations and the massive work of editing, Lindsay Bartlett (Tulane University), Kevin Moon (Rutgers University), Erika Mandarino (Tulane University), Mary-Evelyn Farrior (Tulane University) and Molly Pechukas-Simonian (Tulane University): without their help and advice the project would be still in “perilous waters.” I also wish to express my gratitude to Tulane University that, in 2017, provided a Carol Lavin Bernick Faculty Grant in order to finalize the revision and translation of the essays present in the book. Due to the long developments of the volume, I ask the reader to attribute all the inevitable faults and weaknesses only to myself. INTRODUCTION ROBERTO NICOSIA This volume intends to present to the English-speaking public the variety and continuity of an Italian genre par excellence, for the most part still res nullius or no man’s land, as defined by Marziano Guglielminetti.1 Far from providing any possible “anatomical dissection” or historical reconstruction aiming to delineate the uniqueness of a genre and its characteristics, the volume is a sort of “vertical” inspection where samples of criticism from a diverse pool of scholars, American as well as Italian, focus on a literary tradition devoted to the principles of flexibility and multiplicity (multiple narrative voices, multiple subjects, multiple cultures, etc.). The Italian short story holds a position of marginality in relation to other canonical literary genres such as the epic poem, the pastoral or the novel, but its “slanted” position guarantees the fertile ground where Eastern and Western literary traditions meet and come to dialogue, experimenting with a new language (vernacular prose) and stylistic codes (first of all through realism, then through verisimilitude). The diversity of the genre is also reflected in the new historical and socio-cultural background due to the appearance of new “literary agents” (receivers), such as merchants, women and, more generally, a larger group of readers. The result is a natural openness to diversity and change (metamorphosis), which characterizes and marks the modernity of its narrative through the ages. Since its beginnings, in fact, the short story, and the Italian short story in particular (Novellino or Libro di detti e di bel parlar gentile), appear in the literary tradition as a mosaic of voices and subjects, where the mix reflects literary values and qualities based on the possibility to explore and enact a continuous change of perspective. For example, can the cornice device be considered a sort of panopticon or can the multiplicity of the stories be a reaction against the mono-dimensional 1 Novellieri del Cinquecento, vol. 24, 2 vols., (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1972), I, ix. 2 Introduction dominant voices of the tales of chivalry?2 Consequentially, one of the strongest and most evocative examples chosen by Calvino in the Harvardian Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (1984)3 is taken from Boccaccio’s Decameron (VI, 9): the elegant jump over the tomb of Guido Cavalcanti is an emblem and a metaphor of an entire genre devoted to lightness and flexibility, as well as quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity. The ‘genealogical tables’ by Letterio di Francia at the beginning of 20th century show how the short story originated from an ancient oral tradition of Indian ancestry (Life of Barlaam and Josafat, Panchatantra, The Seven Wise Masters). During its passage to the Western medieval world, it was strongly influenced by the exempla (short narration aiming at inspiring moral edification) of the Middle Age Christian tradition, as well as novellas, fabliaux, miracles, lais, vidas and Occitanic and Provencal novas: an alternative to the cultivated Greek and Latin literary production, whose remains are nonetheless visible in the theory of the comic and in the models of the Apuleain Metamorphosis or the Milesian and sybaritic fabulae (e.g. the Ephesian matron tale, inserted in Petronius’ Satyricon or the tale of Peronella in Boccaccio). This “adaptive” nature of the novella also reflects the wide landscape of the subjects treated: from stories based on the court and chivalric sagas to tales inspired from the Bible and the lives of Saints, fables and merchants’ tales. Other than representing a “narrative displacement” characterized by an ample array of historically interwoven times and places (classical and medieval; diverse economies and cultures such as the ones related to the court, the city and the castle; the particular taste for details, the multiple registers of language; the centrality of wit; the definitive choice of prose over the rhythm of the octosyllabic verse, etc.), the variety expresses tension in the same etymology. Novella and novellare, in fact, other than referring to the act of “narrating, recounting, [and] telling stories,” also recall the idea of “novelty”
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